Norseman Raider (The Norseman Chronicles Book 4) (22 page)

If we wanted Aethelred’s coins, we had to act fast
before they came.

Fast
.  But there would be no surprise.

. . .

“Hel’s frozen crotch!” exclaimed Godfrey.  He spun and sank on his rump into the muck.  The king bit his lip and bit at the inside of his cheek.  His icy confidence from just moments earlier was thawing.

“Burn the doors?” I asked.  Don’t judge me too harshly for my
idiotic suggestion.  Recall that this entire endeavor was my first strandhogg, my initiation into raiding.  I knew nothing of the subject other than I was young, virile, and strong.  If a man came at me with a weapon and if he didn’t kill me in the first few moments, he’d soon find his entrails sloshing through his fingers.  I understood that if I survived, I’d earn an allotment of the takings.

“Do you think they’ll just let us march up there and kindle a
fire next to the doors?” Brandr huffed.

“And if they did,” Loki
began, “a few arrows from the ramparts and a bucket of water would end the assault before it started.  You’re talking about part of a siege.  Sieges can last days, weeks, or months.  We don’t have that kind of time.  We don’t have the manpower or the tools to build siege engines.”

Killian
laughed sardonically at Loki.  “It’s not a matter of tools or the number of men, fool.  None of us knows the first thing of building engines.”  The priest gave Loki a frown then crouched and walked along the slowly moving creek to face the king.  He knelt, half in the water, half in the mud.  “Any guess as to how many men in the fortress?”

Godfrey glowered.  “No.  What did the parchment that you found at Maredubb’s keep
say?”  The king didn’t wait for any answer.  “Oh, that’s right.  You said that the mint was to be unguarded.  That was the word you used, correct?  Unguarded?”

Killian shrugged
, but took the jab in stride.  “That is what the parchment said.  Clearly that’s not the case.  It said only that reinforcements for an unguarded garrison were going to arrive shortly.  Perhaps those reinforcements are who we fought at the shingle?  Perhaps the fort is now nearly vacant.”

“We won’t know until we run across that open field
like a deer, fly across the trench like a raven, and successfully scale the wall like a marten,” said Godfrey.  He closed his eyes as he thought of a way through the problem.

Leif crawled back to his feet and peeped over the bank again.  “Halldorr, how tall is that wall?”

Without opening his eyes, Godfrey shoved me toward Leif.  “See what the red-haired diviner has to say.  Maybe he can find a way to have the soldiers invite us in like he did in Aberffraw.”  I, wary, joined my friend.

“From here it looks like two, or maybe just two and then a bit more, fadmr.”  I reached an arm over the rim of the bank and pointed through the thicket.  “See that sentry’s head?  Would it take about fifteen of his
skulls stacked to run from the bottom to the top?  Why do you ask?”

Leif had already turned around.  He slid down the mud into the creek and splashed through to the other side.  Leif scrambled up into the thin line of forest that snaked along that bank.  He planted his feet on the floor of the woods, set his hands on his hips, and looked skyward.  He was nodding.

“Oh, what is it?” asked Killian.  “You like to act as if you’ve found the master plan long before the rest of us.”

“I have,” said Leif.  His head now scanned up and down se
veral long, narrow trees.  Situated away from the forest edge and not growing in the center of a field, they were nearly branchless, except for the very tops.  Leif counted, nearly under his breath.  “One, two . . .”

Killian was mumbling about Leif’s frustrating condescension.  I could understand the priest’s anger.  More than once before that day and many times since that day, Leif had done the same to me.  It was maddening.  His confidence, his seeming knowledge of events before they happened could make even his friends find fault.  But Leif was wise.  He was mostly moderate and level-headed.  Furthermore, Leif was usually right.

He spun to face us.  “King Godfrey, you still want the coins?  And you want them now?”

Godfrey spat a wad of phlegm into the brook.  “Of course, I do.”  He stood
and walked over to the opposite bank.  “What do you have in mind?”

Leif received the answer he expected and, therefore, ignored the king’s petition.  Leif pointed to all the men who lounged in the mud.  “Anyone with a war ax
e, prepare to dull it.  Come.  Come!”  He waved both hands, encouraging them up.  They obeyed the young fool.  We were all fools, but I’ve said as much.

“Cut down all the straight trees you can.  Make sure they are no larger in diameter than your balled fist.  We don’t want to waste time
chopping.”  He was pacing now.  “We need sixteen or eighteen that are between two and a half and three fadmr in length.”

Brandr protested, “It took me most of the day to make a good sturdy ladder to use around my long
home.  We don’t have that time.”

“And how many years do you expect to use it?  You built it
by yourself?” asked Godfrey, immediately enthusiastic about Leif’s plan.

“What?” Brandr began.  “Yes, I built it myself, King Godfrey.  It had better last the rest of my life.”

“Good.  These ladders have to last less than one day.  You’ll have dozens of hands helping.  We’ll be done before midday,” answered Godfrey, hauling out his short war axe and taking the first swing at a thin oak.  The blade left smeared, black blood from the morning’s carnage emblazoned in the cut near the tree’s base.

“We’ll be done
by then if Halldorr runs back to the ships and brings all the cord he can find,” said Leif.  He marched through the trees and pointed out to the men which ones he wanted brought down.  They fanned out into the small woods.  Soon the sound of a dozen axes sang.

“Why me?” I asked, immediately regretting I
had bothered.

“You’re the fastest,” he said.  “Besides, you’ll want to check on your thrall.”

Aoife?  Something about the way Leif said it made me think that there may be trouble at the boats.  Without further protest, I splashed my way back down the creek toward the shingle.

“Bring some sail
cloth!” Leif called after me.  Only I didn’t hear him.  I know today that he told me such a thing because Godfrey scolded me later.  I suppose it matters little that I didn’t bring the cloth.  It should be quite obvious to you that I survived the day.  I won’t be ruining my tale if I tell you that Leif lived.  Many others lived, too.

Some did not. 
And only some of those who did not survive could be said to have died because I did not bring the sailcloth.

That is what I tell myself to keep my chin high.

. . .

The singing of the axes quickly faded as I approached the shore.  The town’s fire still blazed.  It audibly roared
as I ran along the shingle toward the boats.  Though the nearest burning house was fifteen fadmr away, I could feel the inferno’s heat.  Based upon the works, the sluice, and the stench, that building was a tanner’s shop as well as his home.  No longer.

I saw activity at the ships.  More than I had hoped.

Perhaps a half score of villagers – all of them angry men – had come to the shingle seeking retribution.  They carried no true weapons, though what they did hold – fishermen’s gaffs, scythes, hoes, wooden rods – could kill most men easily enough if given the opportunity.  Our wounded fought valiantly to prevent them the chance.

One of our Welshmen already lay dead.  If I remember correctly, he had an arm wound from the first fight.  It would have healed in a short while if
he avoided infection with the stinking pus.  He was not so fortunate.  His body lay sprawled out half on the dock, half on the shingle.  He was the most ambulatory and, therefore, the first man to intercept the villagers.  Eight more of a mixed bag of Welshmen, Manx, and Norsemen held off the crazed men from Watchet to varying degrees of success.  These defenders limped and swung a sword if they could.  If they were unable to heft steel, they swung fists or threw the errant stone.

I had quickened my pace, running over scattering seaside rocks.  That was when I realized that I hadn’t seen Aoife.  She should have been in the thick of the fight.  Even after her scare at Aberffraw, she
had demonstrated a willingness to take risks that very morning.  She would not hide away with the baggage on one of our ships.

A flash of movement further up the shingle, closer to the blaze caught my eye.  It was Aoife.  She struggled under the firm grasp of an Englishman who had clenched his fingers into the tawny rat’s nest that sat atop her head.  He was a blacksmith.  I could tell, for he still wore a long leather apron that flapped with each step.  His forearms would be like the iron on which he pounded all day, every day.  Aoife would not soon escape.

“Bitch tits,” I muttered.  In the smith’s other hand he carried a long board.  It was charred black along most of its length.  The flames on the burning end fluttered as he waved it in the air.  He meant to torch our ships and compel us to face whatever English force came down the herepath.  Even just a single fire successfully kindled on one or two of our ships would spread to the rest, leaving only Randulfr’s boat – where that was I still did not know – as our last chance at escape.

The blacksmith closed on the boats and his comrades.  I closed on the entire party.

As I have done many times since, when confronted with the poetic insanity that is battle, I screamed.  It was the call of the Berserkers of time eternal.  If I had the time, I felt like I would have stripped my clothes off and ferociously howled at the bastards who dared make their sortie.  That’s what the ancients, my ancestors, had done.  The tales said as much.  Had I done so, I would truly have been like the battle-mad Berserkers of yore, their heir, their kin.  I didn’t strip.  I simultaneously drew my sword and jerked my small axe from my belt.  I wailed with a rumbling, phlegm-filled madness.

The Englishman on the left of their so-called line was closest to me.  Even though he spun to meet my attack, he tumbled to the earth moments later in wide-eyed terror.  He thrashed about on the ground trying to stuff his innards back where they belonged.  I placed a heavy boot on his chest and jumped over him.

Now, I must explain to you that this was an utterly foolish action.  It was something that a skald would say a warrior did in battle because skalds, who are mostly cowards, tell tales and sing songs like the greatest of the heroes they portray, but never find themselves in the thick of the clash.  The victories won by kings, jarls, and free men are enough to supply the skalds with warm broth and mead in exchange for their yarns.  Dozens of things could have gone wrong with my leap.  My boot could have slipped off his chest.  Had I fallen, the next Englishman in line could have killed me with one swing of his staff crushing my temple.  Or, the dying man on the ground could have found the presence of mind to ram his sickle into my shin.  I would have fallen and again the man with the staff could have ended my life.  Or, my death could have been the result of my landing on the outstretched gaff of a fisherman.  Just because none of those things happened, does not mean that the act wasn’t foolhardy.  It was.

While flying through the air I shrieked again.  The second man in the English line drove his staff up
.  It connected with my thigh before sliding into my groin.  It hurt mightily.  I felt at once nauseous, but had no time for such nonsense.  My path was set.  Down I toppled onto the second man.  He clutched the staff that had fallen between us.  He should have let it go and proceeded to grapple or bludgeon my face with his fists.  His mistake cost him his life.  My axe hammered its way between his ribs.  By the time one of his hands seized my face, the grip was weak and waning.

I rolled off and saw the other simple townsmen already fleeing.  The blacksmith had tossed Aoife over his shoulder.  The little thing roiled like a capture
d snake.  I heard her hissing.  She clawed like a feral cat cornered in an alley.  I clambered to my feet.  The smith had stolen my father’s saex from Aoife.

“Thor’s beard!” I swore.  I meant to chase after my quickly receding property, but the
blacksmith had the sense to throw his flaming board on one of our ships.  Already the baggage and stowed sails had ignited.  The badly wounded who could move, crawled and hurled themselves over the gunwale and onto the hard dock or into the shallow surf.  Aoife and my father’s blade would have to wait.  At least I knew she’d make it difficult on her captors.  That is, until they made it difficult on her.

I clasped the arm of the nearest wounded, yet ambulatory, Welshman and dragged him
the short distance down the dock toward the fire.  We didn’t attempt to communicate verbally.  I tossed him into the shallow waves while I leapt over the gunwale.  Feverishly, I hurled the baggage overboard to the waiting Welshman who guided it toward the shore if it was of value or let it float away or sink if not.  Alight with flame or not, it went over.  I was indiscriminant.  My hands were singed.

Two of the terribly wounded men who were resting on the
ship’s decking and unable to flee the miniature blaze were already burning.  Their trousers went first.  The one who could still move his legs kicked madly.  The other just bawled with a quivering lower lip as he watched what just that morning had been his strong fighting legs turn into taut crisps.  I found an empty hudfat and threw it onto the nearest man, following behind with my body’s weight.  My hands smacked at the sack.